History Commons^™

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

From Fields To Factories: The Industrialization Of The United States’ Cattle Industry, Joseph Petersen

History | Senior Theses

This paper will look at the changes of the United States of America's cattle and beef industry from the 19th into the 21st century. It will also show how the industry has evolved into its current state and predict the changes to come. This paper will be evaluating how technology and equipment have changed the traditional farming and ranch lifestyles. While also breaking down the economies from pre-industrial times into modern day. This paper will also explore the effect that technology, equipment, ranching styles, labor and financial changes had on the cattle and beef industry. Finally, this paper will prove …

Portraits With A Posthumous Voice: Reinforcing And Contesting Social Norms In The Heterotopic Museum And Cemetery, Matthew J. Crissey

Museum Studies Theses

Abstract

The following paper qualitatively analyzes and documents over 500 memorial-photographs/etched portraits on tombstones in ten Western New York cemeteries. This paper covers fourteen topics, ranging from religion to gang-violence. A juxtaposition of portraits exhibited within the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with memorial-portraits on tombstones revealed heterotopic environments creating a public forum enabling the reinforcing or contestation of social ideologies. In other words, the author observed the similarities of identities and social norms publicly expressed on tombstones and gallery portraits.

A Social Constructionist approach enabled the study to examine how one social phenomenon contributes to the shaping of a culture. …

Struggle For Survival: The History And Ethics Of Living Collections, Emily Simms

Museum Studies Theses

This thesis explores the ethics involved with institutions caring for living collections worldwide such as zoos, national parks, and aquariums. There are several main concerns that these institutions are currently facing: poaching, keeper negligence, euthanasia within zoos themselves, and public opinion. The moral issues engrained can help guide keepers of these collections to take better care of the animals for which they are responsible. It also explores specific cases in the past in which living collections have managed serious issues and how they resolved these issues.

In The Shadows Of Dominion: Anthropocentrism And The Continuance Of A Culture Of Oppression, Christopher A. Shields

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The oppression of nonhuman animals in Western culture observed in societal institutions and practices such as the factory farm, hunting, and vivisection, exhibits alarming linkages and parallels to some episodes of the oppression of human animals. This work traces the foundations of anthropocentrism in Western philosophy and connects them to the oppressions of racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism. In outlining a uniform theory of oppression detailed through the marginalization, isolation, and exploitation of human and nonhuman animals alike, parallels among the groups emerge as the fused oppression of each exhibits a commonality among them. The analysis conducted within this work highlights …

An Analysis Of The Psychozoological Tales Of Rafael Arévalo Martínez, Ricardo Cortez Costello

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This paper will identify and analyze the literary phenomenon of the preponderance of the transfer of dumb animal. traits, including mannerisms, instincts and brute social behavior to human beings as found in the prose of Rafael Arevalo Martlnez of Guatemala. This literary phenomenon has been called.zoomorphimn and psychozoology.